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For those who don’t follow either my personal profile or The Bloog on Facebook, you should be made aware that this is happening:

You guessed it – I am once again revamping my personal website, kludging together whatever bits and pieces of HTML I know with the templates and code snippets that Dreamweaver has provided me, I intend to update as much of the existing website as I can to the above layout, and move everything to a new domain. The anonymous benefactor who has very graciously been keeping both “loogslair” domains afloat the past few years has already notified me that they will not be doing it in the future, so this move was going to be coming eventually anyway.

The reason I’m making this announcement rather than surprising everyone with the new design is because frankly, I don’t know how much of the site is actually worth keeping. Granted, there are definitely elements that I’m going to make efforts to save, such as the capsule reviews, the 50 Most Memorable Game Show Moments, and a few other things. But I can’t guarantee that your favorite piece of Loogaroo history is going to be updated in time to make the changeover, and if it doesn’t get done before my (admittedly self-imposed) deadline, it won’t get on the new site until it does, if it does.

That said, here’s the date: September 15, 2014. That is when everything is to be moved over to the new site. It will also mark the end of both loogslair sites, as well as my presence on WordPress. (Whatever articles I’ve written during the WordPress era – all three of them – have already been updated, so don’t worry about losing those.)

Thanks to everyone who’s enjoyed the site for the over 20 years it’s been in existence. (Yes, it really has been that long.) The audience that the site has had this whole time has been relatively small, but it’s been loyal, and that really is something that brings me a lot of gratitude. Who knows if the new site will end up going just as dormant as it’s been the last few years, but if my personal experience with the site is any indication, you can expect at least a few new blatherings from me before I get caught up in other things once again. (And hey, look! There’s a new article already written once the new site goes live! Aren’t you just shivering with anticipation?)

We’re three days into the game show experiment that is The Million Second Quiz. In what is easily the most ambitious game since Who Wants to Be a Millionaire back in 1999 (yes, it’s really been that long), NBC has devoted over 11 days of its prime-time schedule to a game that amounts to little more than two people answering questions against each other.

That’s not bad, per se. But while Millionaire managed to capture the imagination of the country by presenting an otherwise simple quiz in a way that produced some of the most organically dramatic and tense moments the genre’s ever seen, MSQ is much more about the destination than the journey. Odd, given that the entire premise of the game revolves around someone accumulating money as each of those one million seconds passes.

As some of you may know, I was able to take part as an alternate contestant on the new GSN game show “The Chase”. While I wasn’t able to make it on the show, I did come away with some great stories about my experience. Most notably, I got to meet one of the most insufferable twerps I’ve ever come across.

No, not him.

Actually, I’m referring to my fellow alternate contestant, a young man by the name of Drew Scheeler. What follows is a blow-by-blow account of my two days on the set of The Chase, in close quarters with Mr. Scheeler, and the many ways he managed to burn more bridges than the Viet Cong.

On Saturday, November 2nd, I will be taking part in my second Extra Life gaming marathon. The event consists of people playing video games for 24 hours, to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network hospitals across the country. I will be playing on behalf of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, as I did last year.

The goal this year is to raise $365 for CHLA, up from the $350 I raised last year. So far, there’s already $100 in the pot, so we’re well on our way towards reaching that goal. There are incentives for various donation levels, which are described on the fundraising page.

You’ll probably see more of these posts as the marathon draws closer. But even though it’s still six and a half months away, you’re still welcome to contribute. 100% of your donation will go towards helping treat kids in the Los Angeles area.

We continue on our journey to find the twenty most insipid, slapdash, and otherwise incompetent shows from the past decade with another four entries, but first here’s a recap of the twelve shows we’ve touched on so far:

Week 1 was all about the four shows that we weren’t able to find categories for, but still deserved to be called out (Downfall, Hole in the Wall, Merv Griffin’s Crosswords, Show Me the Money).Week 2 took a closer look at four attempted revivals of previous shows that all fell flat (Temptation, American Gladiators, Chain Recation, Lingo).Week 3 featured the four most prominent examples of game shows where absolutely no skill was required (Deal or No Deal, Set for Life, National Bingo Night, How Much is Enough?).

Before we go into this week’s quartet of fail, here’s our sidebar for the week:

We’ve reached the midway point of our list where we call the 20 most poorly conceived, poorly produced, and poorly executed game shows that have aired since 2003. In our first installment, we looked at four shows whose only common thread was how bad they were. In the second part, we focused on four revivals of previous shows that completely missed the mark. Before we get into part three, here’s a bonus list for your enjoyment: